Civil rights suit filed against Worcester police

Tuesday

Dec 4, 2012 at 6:00 AMDec 4, 2012 at 6:58 AM

By Scott J. Croteau TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

A young mother charged four years ago with suffocating her 13-month-old son has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Police Department and the officers she says coerced her alleged confession.

Nga Truong, now 21, was freed in August 2011 after prosecutors dropped a murder charge against her in the Nov. 30, 2008, death of her son, Khyle Truong.

In addition to the civil rights charges, she is alleging malicious prosecution, false arrest and false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The case against Ms. Truong, who was 16 at the time of her alleged confession, was dropped after a judge suppressed Ms. Truong’s statements to police.

Prosecutors said the suppression ruling by Superior Court Judge Janet Kenton-Walker left the district attorney’s office without enough evidence to go forward.

Ms. Truong’s lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Worcester.

The statute of limitations to file a complaint was on Ms. Truong’s 21st birthday, which was yesterday. .

“One of the reasons it was filed at this juncture was we gave the city an opportunity to discuss it, inviting them to have a discussion about a settlement,” said Edward P. Ryan Jr., Ms. Truong’s Fitchburg-based lawyer. “The city never responded.”

He said he hoped the city would acknowledge wrongdoing and settle the case.

Portions of the two-hour interrogation of Ms. Truong were broadcast last year by WBUR, a National Public Radio affiliate in Boston, and the station posted several video clips of the police questioning on its website.

Ms. Truong was held for almost three years at the Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee and was held for months in solitary confinement, the complaint states.

“Scared and alone, her world was a 7- by 12-foot room behind a metal door, furnished only with a bed and a toilet,” the complaint said. “She ate alone in her room and could see visitors only through a heavy glass partition.”

In a previous interview, Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. acknowledged he knew there were problems with the interrogation from the beginning of the case. Mr. Early defended the decision to prosecute, and said last year that an experienced prosecutor from his staff is now present when Worcester detectives question murder suspects at the police station.

Police Chief Gary J. Gemme said the allegations lacked merit.

“I believe that the allegations raised (lack of probable cause and coercion) are unfounded, and that the officers will be vindicated,” Chief Gemme said. “The interrogation and arrest was validated by District Attorney Joseph Early. His decision to pursue a criminal prosecution against Ms. Truong for the death of her infant son was based, in part, on the interrogation conducted by the department.”

He continued, “The Worcester Police Department and the Worcester district attorney’s office have ongoing dialogue regarding criminal investigations and I am confident that our standards and practices meet constitutional scrutiny.”

Mr. Ryan called the interrogation a horrible ordeal.

“It was absolute psychological torture,” he said. “It was horrible.”

In her ruling throwing out the confession, Judge Kenton-Walker ruled Ms. Truong’s statements to Sgt. Pageau and Detective Doherty were not made voluntarily.

The judge ruled the investigators did not give Ms. Truong a “genuine opportunity,” as required by law, to consult a parent, interested adult or lawyer about her right to remain silent.

“Although defendants Pageau and Doherty knew that Nga was only 16 years old, that she was distraught as a result of the death of her child and that she had been coercively detained for interrogation, they not only failed to provide Nga with an opportunity to consult either with her mother, an interested adult or an attorney before attempting to secure from her a waiver of her Miranda rights, they actively worked to prevent such consultation,” she said in her federal complaint.

The complaint states Khyle Truong was not a healthy child and had been hospitalized multiple times for serious respiratory problems. Before he died, Khyle had strep throat and bronchitis with a fever, the complaint said. On the morning of Nov. 30, 2008, Ms. Truong found her son was not breathing and her family called 911.

The complaint lists the events that unfolded, including the response from officers and processing of a potential crime scene. No cause of death was determined by a medical examiner, the complaint said.

The video clips show Sgt. Pageau, who was transferred out of the Detective Bureau, questioning a tearful Ms. Truong about her child.

The complaint accuses the two investigators of lying about medical evidence showing Khyle had been smothered and promising the courts would be lenient if she confessed.

“Throughout the interrogation by Pageau and Doherty, Nga consistently and unequivocally denied that she had killed Khyle,” the complaint said. “But after two hours, having been told that she was not free to leave and having been reduced to tears and overwhelmed by the coercion, intimidation and false statements by Defendants Pageau and Doherty, and induced by their false promises of leniency and help for her brothers, Nga stated that she had smothered Khyle.”

Mr. Ryan said the complaint was filed to get some measure of compensation for his client.